Swiping action for displaying a translation of a textual image

ABSTRACT

Disclosed is a method that involves acquiring an image with text, displaying all or a portion of the image on an electronic device. In response to detecting a swiping action or gesture, displaying a result of translation on a screen of the device. A first screen or display becomes a second one. Original text in a first language or source language may be easily and quickly compared to translated text shown on a second screen through a swiping gesture. Electronic dictionaries and machine translation may be used. These services may be independently stored and operated from different locations including on the device performing the translation, on a server or across a network (LAN, WAN, etc.). Optional manual correction of the translated text is also possible.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field

Embodiments of the invention generally relate to the field of automatedtranslation using electronic dictionaries and various applications insuch areas as machine translation.

2. Related Art

There is a lot of electronic devices with display screens capable ofdisplaying text, including devices with a touch screen, for example manymobile devices, such as smartphones, mobile phones, laptops, tabletcomputers, netbooks, personal digital assistants (PDAs), e-book readers,photo and video cameras.

These devices have enough resources for using electronic dictionaries,which may be installed locally. Machine translation system may beavailable over the Internet, WiFi, Bluetooth, and through these andother types of networks and protocols.

Many of the aforesaid devices involve advanced displays and associatedlogic capable of supporting non-keyboard type input methods. For examplethe devices may support pen-based input, voice-based input ortouch-based input.

Also, most of above-identified electronic devices may involve the use ofa camera and other components to facilitate receiving, capturing andusing photographs and images with text.

SUMMARY

In one embodiment, the invention provides a method including receivingan image with text (photos, PDF, Word files, pictures, etc.) with textto be translated on the screen of electronic device, automatedtranslation of the text, displaying the result of translation on thescreen of electronic device, providing a user an opportunity to swipe orrefresh screens and compare the original text with the translated one.Some or all of the screens of the electronic device is swapped orrefreshed upon the device receiving a swiping action.

Electronic dictionaries may comprise a software program, software logicwhich operate with dictionary data. The software program may include ashell, which provides a graphical user interface, morphology models todisplay inflected forms, a context search that uses an index, a teachingmodule, etc. The dictionaries that the user needs to use may beindependently stored in different locations including the computerdevice or a server in a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network(WAN) such as the Internet.

An electronic device may also connect to a machine translation system.The machine translation system may be located on a remote server, accessto which is available via a network connection or protocol to theserver, e.g. over the Internet.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A shows an example of a user interface displayed on a touch screenof an electronic device with German text to be translated withdictionary into another language.

FIG. 1B shows an accurate English translation of the text shown in FIG.1A on the screen switched by a swiping gesture.

FIG. 1C shows another example of a user interface displayed on a touchscreen of an electronic device with German text to be translated intoanother language through a machine translation system, etc.

FIG. 1D shows an accurate English translation of the text shown in FIG.1C switched by a swiping gesture.

FIG. 2 shows a flowchart of operations performed, for example bysoftware, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosureconcerned with translation.

FIG. 3 shows a flowchart of operations performed, for example bysoftware, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosureconcerned with the method of correction of translated text.

FIG. 4A shows an example of selecting a particular word to be correctedand opening an entry with other possible variants of translation ofselected word in output language.

FIG. 4B shows an example of correcting translated text by insertinganother more appropriate or desired variant of translation.

FIG. 5 shows an exemplary hardware for implementing the technology ofthe present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerousspecific details are set forth in order to provide a thoroughunderstanding of the invention. It will be apparent, however, to oneskilled in the art that the invention can be practiced without thesespecific details. In other instances, structures and devices are shownonly in block diagram form in order to avoid obscuring the invention.

Reference in this specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment”means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic describedin connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodimentof the invention. The instances of the phrase “in one embodiment” invarious places in the specification are not necessarily all referring tothe same embodiment, nor are separate or alternative embodimentsmutually exclusive of other embodiments. Moreover, various features aredescribed which may be exhibited by some embodiments and not by others.Similarly, various requirements are described which may be requirementsfor some embodiments but not other embodiments.

Advantageously, the present invention discloses an electronic devicethat allows a user to perform machine or dictionary translation of animage or photograph containing text, display the translated variant ofthe image on another screen of an electronic or mobile device, and toswitch between screens by performing a swiping gesture. The terms“screen” and “another screen” imply different views or representationson a physical screen or parts of a same physical screen and refer to arepresentation of an original image and a translated one. The electronicdevice preferably includes or accesses additional optical characterrecognition (OCR) software, firmware, algorithms or functionality tosupport translation of text. Such OCR software can identify the regionson the image where the text is located and then converts the image inthe regions into a text format. OCR software may be installed at anyremote server and run via the Internet, Bluetooth, etc. so that an OCRfunctionality need not be limited to steps or algorithms performed onthe device that displays, captures or accesses an image of text.

The method(s) allow a user to correct results of an OCR function, an OCRresult, and to re-initiate a translation of the original text, orportions of the original text such as based upon a correction made by auser. For example, a user may change a word recognized as “mike” to“make” to enable a correct translation of the word in the image into asecond or target language.

Additionally, the disclosed methods also allow a user to compare theresult of a machine and/or dictionary translation of the text (in asecond or target language) with the text in a first or original (source)language. The methods may include the alternating use of a forward andbackward swiping motion or action to a touch sensitive screen or inrelation to a touch sensitive screen. The forward and backward swipingaction may be, for example, respectively, a left swiping motion and aright swiping motion, or an upward and downward swiping motion, or by acounter-clockwise and clockwise rotation of a device etc.

The methods also allow a user to look through alternatives oftranslation and to optionally and manually make word-by-word correctionof the text by insertion or replacement of a first translation withanother variant of translation. The opportunity to manually correct thetranslated text (in the target language) is useful in the case when auser is not satisfied with the translation proposed by systemtranslation or when a word is not translated due to text that was notaccurately recognized.

A manual correction of the target language comprises, for example,touching a user interface element associated with a certain word or wordcombination in the translated text in an output language, displaying alist of alternative variants of translation for the source word or wordcombination (e.g., in a balloon or in a pop-up or overlay window),allowing a user to look through, find or enter other possible variantsof translation of the word or word combination, receiving an input froma user that indicates a variant of translation, and performing aninsertion or substitution of an appropriate variant of translation inthe text instead of the variant originally or first proposed by thetranslation system.

In alternative embodiment, a subsequent translation from a targetlanguage back to a first (source) language may be made to allow a userto verify that the translation to the target language carries thecorrect meaning or sense. Such subsequent translation may be made byusing a distinctive and different motion or swiping action in relationto the touch-sensitive screen. Only a portion of the translated text maybe re-translated to a source language. Such portion may be indicated bya different swiping action (e.g., two-finger action, three-fingeraction), or by selecting a portion of text, and then subsequently makinga swiping motion in a backward orientation or motion.

A system user can preliminarily select or “pre-set” a mode oftranslation (dictionary translation mode, machine translation mode,etc.), for example depending on the kind of text or accessibility of anInternet or cellular telephone connection. In one exemplary embodiment,two modes of translation are available: a dictionary translation and amachine translation. Dictionary translation performs a word-by-word orphrase-by-phrase translation based on translation of words and wordcombinations available in one or more dictionaries. A machinetranslation performs a sentence-by-sentence or phrase-by-phrasetranslation of the source text. In other embodiments, other modes oftranslation may be available including various services of machine andautomated translation.

Word-by-word dictionary translation may be selected in a case when textis represented as a string of grammatically unconnected words, forexample a menu or a set of ingredients in a food recipe. The choice ofdictionary translation allows one to save memory and resources of anelectronic or mobile device. An example of a text image translated undera dictionary mode is shown in FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B. An image with Germantext appears in FIG. 1A and an accurate translation of the text appearsin FIG. 1B.

In alternative embodiment, a pulling of a portion of the visiblelanguage down (off the screen) and then raising it back upward (withoutlifting the finger from the surface of the device display) translatesonly those lines or portions of text that were temporarily moved off thescreen. Thereby a portion of the text in the image displayed or rendered(by being in a state of encoded text) to be translated may be selected.For example, if three lines of text from a menu were pulled off thescreen, only those three lines are translated. Similarly, in anotherexemplary embodiment, when two top lines are swiped upward and off thescreen, these two lines are translated when the screen is brought up anddown through a combination of a swiping motion upward followed directlyby a swiping motion downward.

In yet another alternative implementation, with reference to FIG. 1A, atranslation is not performed until a swiping motion 108 is performed onthe touch screen, touch pad, or through some other input device. If asufficiently long swiping motion is made, the image (or encoded text)shown on the display or screen is moved off the side of the display, andthe display is refreshed with a translation of the text. In anotheralternative embodiment, a translation may be made through a particularor separate software application, or a modification may be made to theoperating system such that a translation through a swiping motion may beaccomplished through any software application. For example, a swipingmotion, when used in the context of a SMS texting program, translatestext from a first or source language to a second or target language. Theswiping motion may be performed on a message-by-message basis, on thebasis of an entire screen of text, or on the basis of some or all of ahistory or thread of conversation (based on a configuration setting ofthe SMS texting program).

In another alternative embodiment, the translation of the source textinto two target languages may be performed—either sequentially or at thesame time, depending on a configuration setting. In this scenario, inthe system, two target languages should be preliminary specified. Afirst swiping gesture in a forward direction initiates a translationinto the first target language, and following after the first swipinggesture, a second swiping gesture in a forward direction initiates asecond translation into the second target language. So, if user speaksor is familiar with two or more foreign languages, for example Spanishand German languages, a user can translate the source text into twolanguages based on this procedure. The desired target languages shouldbe specified in the settings of the system or software application. Inthe example, the first swiping of the screen in a forward directionyields the result of the first translation into Spanish, and the secondswiping in the forward direction shows the result of translation of theoriginal (source) text into German. The swiping action makes translationbetween languages much easier than previously available. Instead of auser searching in a menu for a setting for a target language, a swipingmotion allows a user to translate a text between two or more languageswith a single gesture. Also, the opportunity to go back a previousscreen by using a swiping gesture in a backward direction remains for auser. This process is available for translation of the source text intomore than two target languages.

Advantageously, the method of translation with the help of translationand other types of dictionaries is most convenient in the circumstancewhere a device is without Internet access or when the Internetconnection costs too much. Dictionaries may be installed locally on theelectronic device.

On the contrary, machine translation is more reasonable to use in a casewhen a text to be translated includes sentences or words with linguisticand grammatical links between them. An example of a text imagetranslated under the direction of a machine translator is shown in FIG.1C and FIG. 1D.

In one embodiment, a method of translating a sentence from one sourcelanguage into another output or target language includes analyzing thesource sentence using linguistic descriptions of the source language,constructing a language-independent semantic structure to represent themeaning of the source sentence, and generating an output sentence torepresent the meaning of the source sentence in the output languageusing linguistic descriptions of the output language.

FIG. 1A shows an example of an electronic device 102 comprising adisplay screen 104. The content presented on the display screen or touchscreen 104 may be outputted or rendered to the display by anyapplication (e.g. an image-viewer, a pdf-viewer, e-book reader, a WebBrowser, e-mail, Word, Notepad, a textual message) that sends an imageof text to the display screen 104.

The electronic device 102 may comprise a general purpose computerembodied in different configurations such as a smartphone, cell phone,digital camera, desktop personal computer (PC), laptop computer, or anyother gadget and having touch screen as a display screen. FIG. 5 of thedrawings shows exemplary hardware for implementing the user electronicdevice 102, in accordance with one embodiment.

The electronic device 102 may be provisioned with software that includesa dictionary application to implement techniques disclosed herein. Theapplication may include one or more local dictionaries. Additionally,the application may be able to access one or more remote dictionarieslocated on a remote server via a network connection to a server (notshown).

The electronic device 102 may be also provisioned with software thatperforms machine translation or a machine translation system may belocated on a remote server and run via network connection to the server,for example a Model-Based MT system, such as one disclosed in U.S. Pat.Nos. 8,195,447 and 8,214,199. In a preferred implementation, the systemprovides syntactically coherent output. Syntactic and morphologicaldescriptions of the input and output languages are used for thispurpose. The teachings of these patents are incorporated by reference tothe extent necessary to enable the instant invention.

Referring to FIG. 1C, a touch screen 104 of an electronic device 102 isshown with German text. This text represents a set of grammaticallyagreeing words and interconnected sentences, so it is reasonable totranslate this text with an implementation of machine translation. FIG.1D shows the result of machine translation in English where thetranslation shown is a true and accurate translation of the German textshown in FIG. 1C. The translation in English is shown upon detection orperforming of a swiping action 108 such as with a finger. A pictureelement 110 (e.g., picture of a muffin) is not modified and is persistedfrom a first language or source display to a second language or targetlanguage or display.

Referring now to FIG. 2, there is shown a flowchart 200 of operationsperformed by a translation application in accordance with one embodimentof the invention.

The process 201 is responsible for receiving and displaying a text ortextual image on a screen of electronic device. For example, it may be aphotograph, portable document format (PDF) file, or word processor file.After receiving the image with the text to be translated, the disclosedmethod is activated. In one embodiment the translation can start bydetecting a pressing of a button of a camera or camera application toinitiate and capture a photograph or image with text or by detecting afirst swiping motion (108) in relation to an existing or original image.

At first, the software application identifies a text or at least onerectangle in an image that includes a text 202.

An optical character recognition (OCR) software 203 is applied to theidentified region in the image with text. The result of the OCR is aword, word combination, sentence or longer passage of text representedby a string of characters. At the OCR step 203, morphology dictionariesmay also be used as higher OCR accuracy and error correction is oftenachieved by comparing the recognition results with similar word forms inone or more morphology dictionaries. At least one of a machinetranslation or dictionary translation is performed 204. The outputlanguage of translation may be preliminary selected or configuredthrough a selection of a target language in a software application.

Also, the dictionary or set of dictionaries may be preliminarilyselected by the user or may be programmatically or automatically madeavailable or selected based on one or more words that are successfullyrecognized or translated. For example, if an initial OCR operationencounters or recognizes a Russian word, the software application mayassign the source language as Russian, and the target language asanother language other than Russian. Dictionary software may use, bydefault, one or more dictionaries or a user may specify one or moredesired dictionaries. A default dictionary on a given subject may beselected if the dictionary software determines that the text belongs toa specialized subject (e.g., medicine, law, automobiles, computers).

Additionally, the electronic dictionary may include a morphology module,so that the query word or word combination need not be in a base, or“dictionary” form—the morphology module identifies the base form of aninflected form. If more than one base form is possible, the morphologymodule identifies possible alternatives. Also, in some cases, themorphology module may determine a grammatical form of the source word,for example, a number for nouns or form of verbs, to select a properform for the translation in an output language.

Also the morphology module identifies relevant word forms of variants oftranslation, for example, in accordance with the form of the translatedword in the original sentence such as tense forms of verbs or a noun ina plural form.

The result of translation is displayed on another screen of theelectronic device at step 205 or may be queued or rendered onto avirtual screen that is physically not visible until after a swipingmotion is detected by the device. A screen or display with translatedtext (106) follows the screen with the original text (104) on theelectronic device by a detecting a swiping action and vice versa (theoriginal text may be re-displayed by a swiping motion in a reverse oropposite direction—e.g., a substantially sideways motion).

At step 206, screens may be switched by swiping to another screen asperformed by a user (such as shown by element 106 in FIG. 1).

If a user is not satisfied with the result of translation, such asproposed by a machine or a dictionary translation, a word-by-word orphrase-by-phrase correction or adjustment of translated text may beperformed 207 such as with the help of dictionaries.

FIG. 3 demonstrates an exemplary flowchart of this process 207 and it isgenerally optional in combination with translation initiated by aswiping motion.

The output is a display or screen with a translation 208 of the originaltext. The translated text may be put over the same background. For thisresult, the characters or letters of the original text may be removed,and the place of their location may be painted or filled with the colorof surrounding background to make the background appear substantiallysimilar to the original background. After that, the translated text isput on the new background. Or, the translated text may be displayedwithout the original background. This variation may be set so that abackground may be rendered or not by default when a translation isshown.

Referring now to FIG. 3, there is shown a flowchart of operationsperformed by the application in accordance with a word-by-word orphrase-by-phrase adjustment 207 of a translated text. When the userswipes between screens and reads a translated text on the display screen106 of the electronic device 102 and wishes to look up other variants oftranslation of a particular or desired word or word combination or tocorrect the translation, the user simply points to the word or wordcombination with a touch on the corresponding region on the displayscreen 106 with a finger, a stylus or other suitable object oractivation mechanism provided by a software application or operatingsystem.

Referring to FIG. 3, the steps of adjustment involve a touch 301, whichinitiates a process that enables the user to see a list of alternativevariants of translation for a word or word combination or an abridgeddictionary entry with other variants of translation. The electronicdevice takes advantage of its touch screen's ability to establish aposition of the touch or gesture to identify a word or word combinationto possibly change. This step may be done through use of absolutecoordinates, coordinates generated as part of parsing or recognition ofthe source text, or coordinates generated as part of the translationprocess relative to the newly produced text in the target language. Theposition or positions are matched against the image or text on thescreen. Various techniques can determine coordinates corresponding tothe touching and these techniques may be very different depending on thetype of touch screen of the electronic device; the type of touch screenmay be resistive, matrix, capacitive, based on surface acoustic waves,infrared, optical imaging, based on dispersive signal technology orbased on acoustic pulse recognition, to name a few. In anotherembodiment the touch screen may have a program interface, and thesoftware application involved in the translating may receive coordinatescorresponding to the touching directly from the touch screen through theprogram interface, through the operating system of the device or throughsome other mechanism. The coordinates corresponding to particular textin the image may be detected and stored during one or more steps of theOCR processing and may be used to identify either a portion of thesource text or of the target language text.

After acquiring relevant coordinates, the method involves determiningwhether the corresponding point or region is in a text area. If thecoordinates correspond to a text area, the word region is identified(302). A word region may contain one word or a word combination. Theidentified word or word combination is then passed as a query to thedictionary or relevant dictionary functionality.

At step 303, by touching on a word or word combination, severalalternative variants of translation of the word or word combination maybe displayed on the screen 106 of the electronic device 102. Variants oftranslation may be displayed in a dropdown list, in a balloon, in apop-up window, as a subscript, or in any other suitable manner.

At step 304, the desired variant of translation may be chosen by, forexample, touching it, touching near it, tapping on or near it, or othersuitable mechanism. Manual input (typing) of an appropriate variant(that is not displayed in the list) may be performed by the user in caseof the absence in the list of proposed variants for a variant that auser considers the appropriate one.

Next, at step 305, a desired variant of translation is inserted in thetranslation (target language text). In this way, an updated translationis shown on the display of the hardware device. Variants for a word orword combination in the source text may also be generated and displayed.In this situation, a user can modify the source text, and then making aswiping motion or gesture to receive or view a new result of translationbased upon the change to the source text.

In the example shown in FIG. 1A, a menu is to be translated from Germaninto English. After receiving the image of a menu on the screen 102 ofan electronic device (for example as a photo from mobile camera), OCRand machine or dictionary translation is performed. The text of the menuis presented as a set of words. A menu may include text withoutgrammatical relations between words so it is reasonable to translatethis type of text (the menu text) with a dictionary translationtechnique. One benefit of a dictionary translation technique includesthe use of considerably fewer resources and less time to complete thetranslation task in comparison with machine translation in this type oftranslation task, and the dictionary translation may be performedwithout access to a resource available over an Internet network orprotocol.

As shown in FIG. 1B the result of a dictionary translation is displayedon the other rendering to the screen 106 of the electronic device 102. Asystem user can swipe 108 between two “screens” or renderings and cancompare the translated text with the original one with a single motionor with a single hand. Replacement of an entire screen of text may beparticularly effective in some situations since, for example, aline-by-line alternating translation (e.g., one line in German followedby a second line in English) may not be easily performed on a relativelysmall screen such as a screen of a mobile phone or smart phone.

As shown in FIGS. 1A, 1B, 4A, 4B the translated text may be put over thesource background with a preliminary painting of the original text onit.

In some cases, translation is carried out not properly or it is moreuseful to leave the word or the word combination without translation (ina first source language) because during translation the word or wordcombination can lose its original sense, for example, text associatedwith names and titles. Moreover, a word or word combination can haveseveral equally valid meanings and therefore a translation may haveseveral variants of translation into another language. Therefore, it ismore reasonable in some circumstances to render a translation and retainsome of the words in a first or original language and then to give auser a choice of variants of translation from the subject areacorresponding to a context. So, to avoid at least the above listedshortcomings, the disclosed invention allows a user to make correctionsin a translated text through a user interface and related mechanismssuch as the ones shown in FIG. 4A and FIG. 4B.

If the user is not satisfied with the quality of a machine or dictionarytranslation, a user can manually make adjustments in a translated text.For example, as in FIG. 4A, a dictionary translation offers a version oftranslation of the plural German noun “raspeln” into the Englishlanguage as the noun “shavings.” The version of the translation“shavings” is not appropriate in a context of a recipe. Therefore, it ismore intelligent (linguistically correct) to replace the translationoffered by a translation system for another variant of translation froma dictionary with a subject domain of cooking. For this purpose, a usertouches the desired word “shavings” on a screen, such as throughdrop-down list (402) with available variants of translation of theoriginal noun “raspeln” shown: shavings; grates; chips; rasps; rattles.One can choose by a touch, another swipe gesture, or other mechanism oractuation the most suitable translation for this context from theproposed variants. If there is no suitable variant among the shownvariants of translation, one can get (404) the complete list oftranslation variants of this word, by making another gesture oractuation on the electronic device, if initially not all variants areoffered.

The most appropriate variant of translation in the example is arguablythe noun “rasps.” So by touching on the display on or near this variant,a system user can insert a word in the translated text instead of takingthe word or variant initially proposed by the translation system.

Moreover by touching on any word to be corrected, all other variants ofits usage in the whole translated text are highlighted. So as shown inFIG. 4A, by touching on the word “shavings” in the second menu item, thenoun “shavings” in the sentence “Ice with coconut shavings” isautomatically highlighted.

Also, the following option can be specified. By manually correcting anyword or word combination in a translated text, the system may proposeautomatic correction of other identical or similar variants of the sameusage in the text. In the above disclosed example, a result ofsubstitution is demonstrated by changing “shavings” to an arguably moreappropriate variant of translation, “rasps.” These words are highlightedin the text shown in FIG. 4A and FIG. 4B.

In the disclosed invention, during correction of translated text, a usercan manually input (e.g., type) the appropriate variant of translationin a case when there are no suitable variants in the list proposed by adictionary. In one implementation, this option may be performed bytouching the button “add” (406), manually typing a variant oftranslation and inserting it in the translated text. Also, the inputtedvariants may be stored, for example, in the user dictionary.

In one implementation the system displays not only a translation of aword, but wordforms of the word to be translated, e.g. tense forms ofverbs, a noun in plural form, etc.

In our example the word “raspeln” is used in the plural in the text.That is why by touching on “raspeln” in the dropdown list with thefollowing variants of translation from the source German language intothe output in the English language are shown and proposed: shavings,grates, chips, rasps, and rattles. As mentioned above, a morphologymodule may be implemented for this purpose.

For a word being translated or any variant of translation, a referenceor calling of an entry with a detailed translation of a word, examplesof use, views of a translation from dictionaries of various subjects(e.g. Universal, Computer, Economics, Science, etc.) is possible. Forexample, a detailed translation may be called by double-touching on theinteresting word, or any other manner of opening an entry with adetailed translation may be preliminary specified.

The disclosed method is especially useful for a quick translation of thetext image that may be easily loaded in or received by an electronic ormobile device, for example a photo. By swiping the screen, translationof the text on image is performed. The result of this translation may beeasily compared with the original text. The disclosed invention isuseful in everyday life for example for tourists and students, who caneasily and quickly generate a translation of a desired advertisement,newspaper story, title, and text from menus, posters, recipes, etc.

FIG. 5 of the drawings shows hardware 500 that may be used to implementthe user electronic device 102 in accordance with one embodiment of theinvention. Referring to FIG. 5, the hardware 500 typically includes atleast one processor 502 coupled to a memory 504 and having touch screenamong output devices 508 which in this case is serves also as an inputdevice 506. The processor 502 may be any commercially available CPU. Theprocessor 502 may represent one or more processors (e.g.microprocessors), and the memory 504 may represent random access memory(RAM) devices comprising a main storage of the hardware 500, as well asany supplemental levels of memory, e.g., cache memories, non-volatile orback-up memories (e.g. programmable or flash memories), read-onlymemories, etc. In addition, the memory 504 may be considered to includememory storage physically located elsewhere in the hardware 500, e.g.any cache memory in the processor 502 as well as any storage capacityused as a virtual memory, e.g., as stored on a mass storage device 510.

The hardware 500 also typically receives a number of inputs and outputsfor communicating information externally. For interface with a user oroperator, the hardware 500 usually includes one or more user inputdevices 506 (e.g., a keyboard, a mouse, imaging device, scanner, etc.)and a one or more output devices 508 (e.g., a Liquid Crystal Display(LCD) panel, a sound playback device (speaker). To embody the presentinvention, the hardware 500 must include at least one touch screendevice (for example, a touch screen), an interactive whiteboard or anyother device which allows the user to interact with a computer bytouching areas on the screen. The keyboard is not obligatory in case ofembodiment of the present invention.

For additional storage, the hardware 500 may also include one or moremass storage devices 510, e.g., a floppy or other removable disk drive,a hard disk drive, a Direct Access Storage Device (DASD), an opticaldrive (e.g. a Compact Disk (CD) drive, a Digital Versatile Disk (DVD)drive, etc.) and/or a tape drive, among others. Furthermore, thehardware 500 may include an interface with one or more networks 512(e.g., a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a wirelessnetwork, and/or the Internet among others) to permit the communicationof information with other computers coupled to the networks. It shouldbe appreciated that the hardware 500 typically includes suitable analogand/or digital interfaces between the processor 502 and each of thecomponents 504, 506, 508, and 512 as is well known in the art.

The hardware 500 operates under the control of an operating system 514,and executes various computer software applications 516, components,programs, objects, modules, etc. to implement the techniques describedabove. In particular, the computer software applications will includethe client dictionary application and also other installed applicationsfor displaying text and/or text image content such a word processor,dedicated e-book reader etc. in the case of the client user device 102.Moreover, various applications, components, programs, objects, etc.,collectively indicated by reference 516 in FIG. 5, may also execute onone or more processors in another computer coupled to the hardware 500via a network 512, e.g. in a distributed computing environment, wherebythe processing required to implement the functions of a computer programmay be allocated to multiple computers over a network.

In general, the routines executed to implement the embodiments of theinvention may be implemented as part of an operating system or aspecific application, component, program, object, module or sequence ofinstructions referred to as “computer programs.” The computer programstypically comprise one or more instructions set at various times invarious memory and storage devices in a computer, and that, when readand executed by one or more processors in a computer, cause the computerto perform operations necessary to execute elements involving thevarious aspects of the invention. Moreover, while the invention has beendescribed in the context of fully functioning computers and computersystems, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the variousembodiments of the invention are capable of being distributed as aprogram product in a variety of forms, and that the invention appliesequally regardless of the particular type of computer-readable mediaused to actually effect the distribution. Examples of computer-readablemedia include but are not limited to recordable type media such asvolatile and non-volatile memory devices, floppy and other removabledisks, hard disk drives, optical disks (e.g., Compact Disk Read-OnlyMemory (CD-ROMs), Digital Versatile Disks (DVDs), flash memory, etc.),among others. Another type of distribution may be implemented asInternet downloads.

While certain exemplary embodiments have been described and shown in theaccompanying drawings, it is to be understood that such embodiments aremerely illustrative and not restrictive of the broad invention and thatthis invention is not limited to the specific constructions andarrangements shown and described, since various other modifications mayoccur to those ordinarily skilled in the art upon studying thisdisclosure. In an area of technology such as this, where growth is fastand further advancements are not easily foreseen, the disclosedembodiments may be readily modifiable in arrangement and detail asfacilitated by enabling technological advancements without departingfrom the principals of the present disclosure.

I claim:
 1. A method comprising: displaying an image with original textin a source language on a touch screen of an electronic device;displaying a translation of the original text in a target language inresponse to detection of a first swiping gesture on the touch screen;and switching back to displaying the original text in response todetection of a second swiping gesture on the touch screen.
 2. The methodof claim 1, further comprising acquiring the image with the originaltext with a camera of the electronic device.
 3. The method of claim 2,further comprising recognizing the original text after acquiring theimage, wherein the recognition and the translation are performed inresponse to a triggering action of the camera of the electronic device.4. The method of claim 1, further comprising acquiring the image withthe original text from a memory storage.
 5. The method of claim 1,wherein the first swiping gesture and the second swiping gesturecomprise a touch movement for a distance along a direction on the touchscreen.
 6. The method of claim 1, further comprising performing anoptical character recognition of the image with the original text in thesource language.
 7. The method of claim 6, further comprisingtranslating, by the electronic device, the original text directly afterrecognizing the original text of the image.
 8. The method of claim 1,further comprising translating the original text after detection of thefirst swiping gesture.
 9. The method of claim 1, further comprisingtranslating the original text with a dictionary translation.
 10. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising translating the original textincludes with a machine translation.
 11. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising manual correction of the translation in the target languagewhen the translation is displayed.
 12. The method of claim 11, whereinthe manual correction of the translation comprises: detecting a firsttouch on the touch screen when the translation is displayed; identifyinga portion of the translation corresponding to the first touch;displaying one or more alternative variants of translation in the targetlanguage of the identified portion of the translation; detecting asecond touch on the touch screen indicating one of the alternativevariants of translation in the target language; and substituting theindicated alternative variant of translation for the identified portionof the translation for displaying.
 13. The method of claim 12, furthercomprising accessing a locally-stored dictionary or a remotely-storeddictionary to acquire the one or more alternative variants oftranslation.
 14. The method of claim 13, further comprising performing amorphological analysis on the identified portion of translation toidentify a base form of a word.
 15. The method of claim 12, wherein wordforms of the one or more alternative variants of translation areconsistent with a word form of the identified portion of thetranslation.
 16. The method of claim 12, wherein the one or morealternative variants of translation are displayed in the form of apop-up window, a text balloon, or a pull down menu.
 17. The method ofclaim 12, wherein the identified portion of the translation is a word.18. The method of claim 12, wherein the identified portion of thetranslation is a word combination.
 19. The method of claim 12, furthercomprising providing a graphical user interface element that facilitatesmanual entry of a variant of translation that is not in the displayedone or more alternative variants.
 20. The method of claim 12, furthercomprising: highlighting, in the translation, instances of same usage ofthe identified portion of the translation; and substituting theindicated alternative variant of translations for the instances of thesame usage in the translation.
 21. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising switching back and forth between displaying the original textand the translation in response to repeated switching between the firstswiping gesture and the second swiping gesture for comparing theoriginal text with the translation.
 22. The method of claim 1, whereinthe first swiping gesture and the second gesture are a left swipingaction and a right swiping gesture, an upward swiping action and adownward swiping action, or a clockwise rotation and a counter-clockwiserotation.
 23. A method comprising: identifying, on a touch screen of anelectronic device, a region of an image that includes text in a sourcelanguage; recognizing, by the electronic device, the text of theidentified region of the image; displaying a translation of the text inthe identified region in a target language in response to detection of afirst swiping gesture on the touch screen; and displaying are-translation of the translation in the target language back in thesource language in response to a second swiping gesture on the touchscreen.
 24. The method of claim 23, wherein the second swiping gestureis of a type distinct from the first swiping gesture.
 25. The method ofclaim 23, wherein the second swiping gesture comprises two points ofcontact with the touch screen.
 26. An electronic device comprising: atouch screen; and a processor, wherein the process is configured to:display an image with original text in a source language on the touchscreen; display a translation of the original text in a target languagein response to detection of a first swiping gesture on the touch screen;and switching back to displaying the original text in response todetection of a second swiping gesture on the touch screen.
 27. Anon-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions which, whenexecuted by an electronic device, cause the electronic device to:display an image with original text in a source language on a touchscreen of the electronic device; display a translation of the originaltext in a target language in response to detection of a first swipinggesture on the touch screen; and switch back to displaying the originaltext in response to detection of a second swiping gesture on the touchscreen.